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Came in first at a local tournament today. Played tau at the end for first place. Venoms and lances blasted the two units of broadsides before they could shoot.

Grotesques killed off riptides.

I ran the grotesquerie formation. It was excellent. Our new army book is fantastic!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For the record, it was doubles. My partner and I were double Dark Eldar.

Round 1 we beat imperial knights lancer formation and grey knights with triple dreadknights.

Round 2 we best necron wraith wing with dark angels.

Round 2 we beat Tau and Orks.

Awesome! Congrats to you and your partner for taking first place at the tournament.

I agree with your larger point about the relative strength of the codex. I'm quite pleased with the new book and the Covens supplement. I think there is a lot of synergy between the codex and the Covens formations and when used together, they can be quite difficult for most opposing armies to handle. Granted, there will always be hard counters to every list, but overall, I think DE are really solid with decent internal balance and good external balance when compared to the other 7th edition codexes. Sure, Tau and Eldar can still be problematic, but they're problematic for a lot of armies. Plus, I suspect they are in GW's nerf sights, so I wouldn't be surprised if 2015 turns out to be less than kind to both of those armies.

You have a weapon that does literally nothing to 4 armies in the game. That's why it's bad.

pm713 wrote:
You have a weapon that does literally nothing to 4 armies in the game. That's why it's bad.

Do you mean like a relic? Because then that would be a bad relic or weapon choice not a bad book. Or do you mean the Splinter Rifles? Because that's pretty bad...

Externally it's pretty good
Internally it's very bad. Considering the last dex was held as a standard of internal balance that all dexes should aspire too, it's even more noticeable

Akiasura wrote:
Externally it's pretty good
Internally it's very bad. Considering the last dex was held as a standard of internal balance that all dexes should aspire too, it's even more noticeable

The only unit you didn't see really from the old dex was Mandrakes, right? That's why I was disappointed in this one. Well from what I've heard, I haven't actually played the new codex.

Since when do team games prove that a codex is good stand alone?

 ImAGeek wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You have a weapon that does literally nothing to 4 armies in the game. That's why it's bad.

Do you mean like a relic? Because then that would be a bad relic or weapon choice not a bad book. Or do you mean the Splinter Rifles? Because that's pretty bad...

There's a weapon that I can't remember the name of that wounds based on Ld tests. The problem is all space marines are immune to it.

Personally I think if you have even 1 thing that's been written to not do anything to even 1 army its a bad book.

Makumba wrote:
Since when do team games prove that a codex is good stand alone?

Since GW turned 40K into 'Just put whatever the hell you want on the table', so there's effectively no difference between a team army and any other army now.

I really liked the DE codex. The only reason why I didnt choose them is I can't for the life of me paint anything difficult, so I chose an easy to paint group!

pm713 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You have a weapon that does literally nothing to 4 armies in the game. That's why it's bad.

Do you mean like a relic? Because then that would be a bad relic or weapon choice not a bad book. Or do you mean the Splinter Rifles? Because that's pretty bad...

There's a weapon that I can't remember the name of that wounds based on Ld tests. The problem is all space marines are immune to it.

Personally I think if you have even 1 thing that's been written to not do anything to even 1 army its a bad book.

I wouldn't say one thing like that makes a bad book (personally). But I get the feeling from what I've read that there's lots of little things like that in there that make the internal balance of it pretty damn poor, which obviously makes it a bad book.

Just because you can win games with a codex doesn't make it good. A good codex is one where any choice is viable, and it's balanced against other Codexes. In my opinion. That's why the last DE dex was so good, there were one or two units you wouldn't take, and it was pretty good but not overpowered. That was a good codex.

I don't know anyone who thinks it's bad, I just don't know any DE players that prefer it to the old one. It feels like I had a vintage Corvette stolen out of my driveway and replaced with a 2014 Pontiac Vibe. And then one guy in particular keeps trolling the forums insisting that my new Vibe is newer, safer, cheaper to operate, has lower insurance, and is more gas efficient than the car that got taken away, then wondering why anyone could have possibly preferred the Corvette.

The new codex is fine. The internal balance is better than most. The external balance is acceptable.

It also has fewer unique mechanics, and is far more boring than it once was.

I've read the 5th edition codex, and it offered a lot. When I got the new book I was really disappointed with the lack of flavor and options that it offered. After playing a few games I started to look at the book in a diff way. The coven book seems to fill in some of the blanks. The DE book to me is the kabal book take your warriors fliers reavers and venoms, then use the coven book to take your nasty units.

It's simply because there is a prevalent attitude that, "I'm not going to be happy with a codex unless it makes my army more powerful".

In fact, nerfing a powerful unit gives a faction more choices, not less, as other, previously unattractive options are now of equal or perhaps more effectiveness than the previous best options.

For the last decade, 40k has been a game of escalation, where units get neat tricks and combinations are created that are quite powerful. To now begin to tone it down, I really don't think is an unhealthy thing for the game. Frankly, I think *every* codex produced in 2014 has been both better internally balanced, and externally balanced with other 2014 codices than previous generations.

I don't think it's legitimate to say that a codex being externally weaker "lacks flavor", any more than that wave serpents make Eldar interesting. If they nerfed serpent shield to 18" range, the Eldar faction would have no more or less flavor -- it would just be weaker.

Talys wrote:
It's simply because there is a prevalent attitude that, "I'm not going to be happy with a codex unless it makes my army more powerful".

In fact, nerfing a powerful unit gives a faction more choices, not less, as other, previously unattractive options are now of equal or perhaps more effectiveness than the previous best options.

For the last decade, 40k has been a game of escalation, where units get neat tricks and combinations are created that are quite powerful. To now begin to tone it down, I really don't think is an unhealthy thing for the game. Frankly, I think *every* codex produced in 2014 has been both better internally balanced, and externally balanced with other 2014 codices than previous generations.

I don't think it's legitimate to say that a codex being externally weaker "lacks flavor", any more than that wave serpents make Eldar interesting. If they nerfed serpent shield to 18" range, the Eldar faction would have no more or less flavor -- it would just be weaker.

Externally, the codex hasn't changed overly much. You can still take eldar allies and roll right over most enemies.

Internal balance of a codex reflects what you see on the tabletop. The last sw codex had blood claws being terrible, so nobody ran them. Now wyches and a few other units are terrible, so you won't see them unless the game is very casual. To use your eldar as an example, why aren't banshees and hawks seen more? The latter are an especially good looking model, while most players own the former from previous editions. The codex isn't weak. It's just that it has awful internal balance.

That's the big complaint of most DE players, and indeed nearly everyone in the thread. Less units being good means that you get less variety in play, and are stuck with useless models.

Like all the other recent books it's just ok. There are some good things along with missed opportunities and frustrating things (e.g. Incubi without assault grenades). But hey, it's GW and they don't understand how their own game is played. Thing that annoys me is the kick to the teeth the HQ section got. We knew we were losing all the special characters (we hoped for a Vect LoW) but the remaining HQ options are very lacklustre.

Akiasura wrote:
Externally it's pretty good
Internally it's very bad. Considering the last dex was held as a standard of internal balance that all dexes should aspire too, it's even more noticeable

Internally it's much better than before, the likes of Scourges and Reavers were far too overcosted to take in the last book, even Mandrakes have a place now. There are some losers like Wyches but there always will be.

ryuken87 wrote:
Like all the other recent books it's just ok. There are some good things along with missed opportunities and frustrating things (e.g. Incubi without assault grenades). But hey, it's GW and they don't understand how their own game is played. Thing that annoys me is the kick to the teeth the HQ section got. We knew we were losing all the special characters (we hoped for a Vect LoW) but the remaining HQ options are very lacklustre.

Akiasura wrote:
Externally it's pretty good
Internally it's very bad. Considering the last dex was held as a standard of internal balance that all dexes should aspire too, it's even more noticeable

Internally it's much better than before, the likes of Scourges and Reavers were far too overcosted to take in the last book, even Mandrakes have a place now. There are some losers like Wyches but there always will be.

The last dex had one loser, mandrakes.
If there are 2 or more units that are bad, it got worse.
The relics also seem awful. But I'm not a DE player, and the 2 people that are play Kabal lists. I know the baron player was furious

Now, disclaimer, I don't play nor have any intention of ever playing Dark Eldar, particularly in their current form, but I have played against them a great deal, being very popular locally, but the codex did one thing which in a game where armies cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars is downright unforgivable; it completely invalided a large swath of people's previous armies. The current 'dex has powerful options and still rewards finesse, which is good, but now it's a mid-range assaulting army with high mobility and average durability whereas before it was a high mobility, high firepower, meh assault but dies to a stiff breeze.

They took a book in which almost everything had a niche and use in a well-thought out and themed army with Covens Or You're Doing It Wrong. Also Jetbikes.

The only themed list which still works is Coven; if you want to still run a Kabalite army, the unique mechanics like shadowfield and flickerfield which let you survive basic small arms are gone, and you're left reliant on a schizophrenic combination of other units to pull the weight your gunboats once did, since now they'll die as soon as they get into range to shoot at anything.

In short, the codex suffers from serious blandification; it can compete, for being bland and monobuild doesn't mean it's weak (just look at formation-centric Tyranids as proof of that) but the lack of options, and heavy reliance on out-of-codex assets, from limited-run WD formations, expensive supplements and whatnot makes it, from a design standpoint, bad.

My friend switched from dark eldar to eldar since the new codex. He is pretty disappointed with it. As a player who played them consistently, they feel like they lost a lot only to gain a little. For the record, I play imperial guard (astra militarum for the nazis).

The loss of night shields and the fact that lances really suck at killing light vehicles means he can no longer compete in fire fights. Venoms are not THAT great at killing infantry. Maybe against marines who can't afford to lose models. My friend started allying eldar to add some 'umph' to his lists in the way only eldar can. We both noticed that his 500 point eldar detachment would kill more and survive longer than the rest of his 1300 point dark eldar army. Almost every time. No matter what options he tried. Kabalites or talos. Again, it could be just that he fights guard all the time and they could be a weakness of DE. But I doubt it.

Talys wrote:
Frankly, I think *every* codex produced in 2014 has been both better internally balanced, and externally balanced with other 2014 codices than previous generations.

Even codex: DreadGrey Knights?

 koooaei wrote:

Talys wrote:
Frankly, I think *every* codex produced in 2014 has been both better internally balanced, and externally balanced with other 2014 codices than previous generations.

Even codex: DreadGrey Knights?

or the IG book, which, awful name change aside, is still filled with units that haven't worked well in several editions, or ever (Ogryn, Heavy Weapons Squads, Conscripts, Rough Riders, etc) on top of outright deleting a bunch of units and needlessly nerfing the Hydra.

Conscripts are bad...wait wut? I wish i had conscripts with a priest. And i'm playing orks, mind you.
Rough riders are fine min squadded barebones with a melta bomb.
Ogryns are fine with an escape hatch.

Hydra - yep. Mediocre and not really needed.

Ogryns are pretty bad outside of bullgryns. I mean Ogryns are expensive and it all looks nice until you notice that they have a 5+ save and no assault transport outside of a land raider. Don't get me started on rough rider they took an already bad unit and nerfed even more! I mean they lost there special character who made them decent in melee and they got more expensive. As a fast melta bomb there too damn fragile.

On topic: many DE players don't like the new book because it took so many options away. No special characters, whyches are pretty bad no matter what the local guy who sayss the internet is wrong says, and there anti tank is abysmal. Lance isn good at destroying av 14 though the problem is that av 14 is rarely seen funny enough because one of those reasons is lance. Also dalymiddlebro I'm wondering what armies you and your partner played against? Though I don't you won't answer me. Also what list were you guys running?

 koooaei wrote:
Conscripts are bad...wait wut? I wish i had conscripts with a priest. And i'm playing orks, mind you.

They require said HQ to be at all functional, and with blob platoons they're redundant (both in terms of role and availability). There's so much cool stuff that could be done with them, but there's really just don't have any utility that isn't provided by other units that are substantially more capable and not significantly more expensive.

Rough riders are fine min squadded barebones with a melta bomb.

I'd disagree (they're gonna get killed right off the bat like that, and aren't gonna put enough hurt on most things to make their investment worthwhile at that size even if they get stuck in) but even if we hold that to be true, the fact that that's the only way they're usable is an issue.

Ogryns are fine with an escape hatch.

Not sure what you mean by escape hatch. Either way, they too require a babysitting HQ (and will be quickly broken or destroyed without said HQ) and still aren't particularly capable for what they cost, they cost as much as a TWC and don't have anything near the resiliency, speed, or killing power.

That said, regarding DE, I think the DE got kind of a weird deal, they're not bad, but kinda awkward.

pm713 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

pm713 wrote:

There's a weapon that I can't remember the name of that wounds based on Ld tests. The problem is all space marines are immune to it.

Personally I think if you have even 1 thing that's been written to not do anything to even 1 army its a bad book.

By this logic the 5th ed Grey Knights codex was bad then. There were multiple items of gear in it that only effected psykers. Tau, SoB, Necrons and Dark Eldar neither have access to psykers. Nor did many IG or Ork armies use psykers. So you mean to say that one of the most powerful codexs written at the time had a bad codex?

Mortikye wrote:

pm713 wrote:

There's a weapon that I can't remember the name of that wounds based on Ld tests. The problem is all space marines are immune to it.

Personally I think if you have even 1 thing that's been written to not do anything to even 1 army its a bad book.

By this logic the 5th ed Grey Knights codex was bad then. There were multiple items of gear in it that only effected psykers. Tau, SoB, Necrons and Dark Eldar neither have access to psykers. Nor did many IG or Ork armies use psykers. So you mean to say that one of the most powerful codexs written at the time had a bad codex?

Of course the Grey Knights codex in 5th was a bad codex. Ridiculous external balance and just poorly written. A codex that's too powerful is just as bad a codex as one that's underpowered.

 koooaei wrote:

Talys wrote:
Frankly, I think *every* codex produced in 2014 has been both better internally balanced, and externally balanced with other 2014 codices than previous generations.

Even codex: DreadGrey Knights?

Hmm, yeah :( You are right, sorry. GK fell short, which is sad, as GK was one of my first armies.

 Mr.bacon wrote:
Ogryns are pretty bad outside of bullgryns. I mean Ogryns are expensive and it all looks nice until you notice that they have a 5+ save and no assault transport outside of a land raider. Don't get me started on rough rider they took an already bad unit and nerfed even more! I mean they lost there special character who made them decent in melee and they got more expensive. As a fast melta bomb there too damn fragile.

On topic: many DE players don't like the new book because it took so many options away. No special characters, whyches are pretty bad no matter what the local guy who sayss the internet is wrong says, and there anti tank is abysmal. Lance isn good at destroying av 14 though the problem is that av 14 is rarely seen funny enough because one of those reasons is lance. Also dalymiddlebro I'm wondering what armies you and your partner played against? Though I don't you won't answer me. Also what list were you guys running?

I don't think you've played with scourges...

That tourney, I killed 3 imperial knights,3 battlewagons, a bastion, a rhino, and some annihilation barges with them. They're pretty fantastic at killing vehicles. I used my ravagers with lances more for killing MCs, instant killing broadsides, and dealing with paladins, more than I threw them at vehicles. We had 3 units of scourges with 4 haywire each, 3 ravagers, 3 razorwing jets, 1 void raven, and 2 units of grotesques. Killing armor was pretty easy.

On the internet the choices are: bad/nerfed, OP, or if it is mostly balanced "flavorless!".

I think the Dark Eldar are very capable right now though. Those darn 24" haywire jump troops are my bane!

 Mr.bacon wrote:
Ogryns are pretty bad outside of bullgryns. I mean Ogryns are expensive and it all looks nice until you notice that they have a 5+ save and no assault transport outside of a land raider. Don't get me started on rough rider they took an already bad unit and nerfed even more! I mean they lost there special character who made them decent in melee and they got more expensive. As a fast melta bomb there too damn fragile.

On topic: many DE players don't like the new book because it took so many options away. No special characters, whyches are pretty bad no matter what the local guy who sayss the internet is wrong says, and there anti tank is abysmal. Lance isn good at destroying av 14 though the problem is that av 14 is rarely seen funny enough because one of those reasons is lance. Also dalymiddlebro I'm wondering what armies you and your partner played against? Though I don't you won't answer me. Also what list were you guys running?

What are you talking about...blasters and lances melt armor 14...